AD 1750-1900 The Industrial Age

The 18th century AD was a period of prosperity for the gentry of eastern England. Landowners were pioneers and beneficiaries of the agrarian (farming) revolution. Turnips, to feed livestock through the winter, and four-crop rotation were introduced by Lord Townshend in the 1730s. Between 1750 and 1780 enclosure increased, allowing uncultivated common land to be developed using the up-to-date methods of men like Coke of Holkham. When Daniel Defoe visited Norfolk in 1723 he was amazed by the numbers of geese and turkeys being driven up to London.

Norwich, the chief city of the region, had a flourishing weaving industry, putting out wool to be spun in the surrounding countryside. The first regional newspaper, the Norwich Post, began in 1701, and a theatre and assembly rooms were opened in the 1750s. Yarmouth bloaters (smoked herring) had a national reputation and the Suffolk ports of Ipswich and Lowestoft thrived.

But by the 19th century, the poor of the region had been left behind by the industrial revolution. The breakdown of old ways, combined with grinding poverty, led to outbreaks of rioting, rick burning and destruction of threshing machines by poverty-stricken agricultural labourers between 1816 and 1848. The textile industry collapsed in Norwich and the city and region began to decline economically.